Florence House

Ratings

• Overall

  Inadequate

• Safe

  Inadequate

• Effective

  Inadequate

• Caring

  Inadequate

• Responsive

  Inadequate

• Well-led

  Inadequate

Our view of the service

Date of assessment: 13 August to 7 October 2025. The service is a residential care home providing support to older people, and younger adults, mainly living with mental health issues. We carried out this assessment due to concerns regarding management of medication, staffing levels and lack of monitoring of people’s needs and support when they displayed distressed behaviour.

We had identified as part of the assessment some people had the primary diagnoses of a learning disability. We, therefore, have assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted.’ We found the provider had failed to meet the principles of this.

The governance systems had failed to identify and rectify the significant concerns we found at this assessment. People were not receiving consistent person-centred care to meet their needs. This was because there was not enough suitability trained and skilled staff to provide continuity of care. Legal consent to care was not always in place, including making decisions in their best interests. There was no effective system in place to manage concerns and complaints, poor incident management, including systems for reviewing and learning to improve care and support provided to people. Environmental risks had not been identified or steps taken to mitigate the risk to people.

The provider was found to be in breach of legal regulations in relation to safe care and treatment, the need for consent, good governance and person-centred care.

In instances where CQC has begun a process of regulatory action, we may publish this information on our website after any representations and/or appeals have been concluded, if the action has been taken forward.

The service is being placed into special measures. The purpose of special measures is to ensure that services providing inadequate care make significant improvements. Special measures provide a framework within which we use our enforcement powers in response to inadequate care and provide a time frame within which providers must improve the quality of the care they provide.

People's experience of this service

We received mixed responses from relatives and people about the care provided. The model of care did not maximise people’s choice, control and independence. There was no goal setting or independence planning to equip people with life skills. People and their relatives were not involved in care planning to ensure their needs were understood and met. They were not all clear on how to raise a concern or complaint and did not feel they would always be listened to. We identified meetings with people who lived in the service where they had raised concerns which had not been resolved from one meeting to the next. Staffing levels were a concern which relatives and people told us had impacted on wellbeing checks taking place, inhouse activities and accessing the community if they needed staff support.

There was a mixed response regarding whether the service was well-led due to the number of managers in the last year. Although the deputy manager was praised for being approachable and listening. People and their relatives said some staff knew them well and were kind and caring. They all felt safe living at the service.